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Can High Intelligence Be a Burden Rather Than a Boon?
HughPickens.com writes David Robson has an interesting article at BBC on the relationship between high intelligence and happiness. "We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness," writes Robson. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson – lone stars, isolated even as they burn their brightest." As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." The first steps to studying the question were taken in 1926 when psychologist Lewis Terman decided to identify and study a group of gifted children. Terman selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the "Termites", and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day. "As you might expect, many of the Termites did achieve wealth and fame – most notably Jess Oppenheimer, the writer of the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy. Indeed, by the time his series aired on CBS, the Termites' average salary was twice that of the average white-collar job. But not all the group met Terman's expectations – there were many who pursued more "humble" professions such as police officers, seafarers, and typists. For this reason, Terman concluded that "intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated". Nor did their smarts endow personal happiness. Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average."
According to Robson, one possibility is that knowledge of your talents becomes something of a ball and chain. During the 1990s, the surviving Termites were asked to look back at the events in their 80-year lifespan. Rather than basking in their successes, many reported that they had been plagued by the sense that they had somehow failed to live up to their youthful expectations (PDF).
Well now, this should end up a wonderful thread full of angsty "geniuses" whining about how they can totally identify with the Termites because no one "gets" them.
As do many fucking idiots who believe they're intelligent.
That... That looks like English...
Set children apart and tell them they are better than the rest and be surprised when they fail to live up to their perceived expectations...
I surely wouldn't qualify as one of the 'termites' in the study, but there still things in my life I take to quickly. There is a third metric that I am in my coming to respect even more: motivation and inspiration.
There is a big difference between having the ability to do something, having the need to do something, and having a want and drive to do something. That last one seems to get people much further then being at the very top in intelligence. It also provides a framework of interaction and social connection between peers, if it is truly a passion.
So maybe it takes being the best and brightest to be first chair violinist in a prestigious symphony, but being brilliant alone won't get you there. Meanwhile hundreds of others have a long and successful career they make out of their perseverance.
Pretty sure it's someone testing out a bot. At least I hope so.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
this is nothing new: i believe the same study was the basis of the famous book "Outliers", which is a fascinating study of what makes people successful. if i recall correctly, it's completely the opposite of what people expect: your genes *do* matter. your attitude *does* matter. your circumstances *do* matter. working hard *does* matter. and luck matters as well. but it's all of these things - luck, genetics, circumstances *and* hard work - that make for the ultimate success story. bill gates is one of the stories described. he had luck and opportunity - by being born at just the right time when personal computing was beginning - and circumstances - by going to one of the very very few schools in the USA that actually had a computer available (for me, that opportunity was when i was 8: i went to one of the very very few secondary schools in the UK that had a computer: a Pet 3032).
so, yeah - it's not a very popular view, particularly in the USA, as it goes against the whole "anyone can make it big" concept. but, put simply, the statistics show that it's a combination of a whole *range* of factors, all of which contribute, that make up success. just "being intelligent" simply is not enough.
Some ten or fifteen years ago, Scientific American published an article about the positive correlation of "general intelligence" with virtually every measure of success in life.
Like earning enough money to be comfortable, having the emotional intelligence to have a successful marriage, etc.
They showed that "general intelligence" which is correlated with but not directly measured by things like SAT scores, was basically a ticket to (or highly correlated with) a good life, and even good health.
And the article was mighty persuasive.
--PeterM
Even being above average means you're surrounded by (relative) idiots. Hell, just stay informed about world events, history, literature, and then stand there in disgust as all people can talk about is the latest episode of "Naked and Afraid". This is by no means a recent thing either; every generation throughout history has repeated the same sorry story.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Unfortunately, this is largely the natural progression of society. Back then, we didn't know how to handle these kids, thus we ham stringed them from the get go. They had the unfortunate luck to be born at a time when we're just awakening to the idea that we should treat children differently than adults, and with absolutely NO awareness that different children require different rearing techniques.
The good news is that, despite all the bullshit,we really have progressed quite far. I doubt, 80 years from now were you to quiz a similar group of kids from today, you'd get the same response. No, instead you might hear how society let them down, that they always felt society always failed to live up to their expectations.
Ah, progress!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Terman should have looked at what I call "mentis," the combination of the individual's accented motivation array and the tool, intelligence, used to build and execute the individual's behavior-space to satisfy that motivation array. Looking at intelligence alone is like staring at a wrench and wondering why it isn't doing something useful. What is happiness? Happiness is being able to build and execute a behavior-space that satisfies one's motivation array. See Warren Buffett. See Albert Einstein.
E Proelio Veritas.
I'm rather skeptical that that is actually possible to do.
Lisa addressed this.
(See? I used per se, so I'm... oh never mind...)
Intelligence and being highly observant are great skills both in society and from an evolutionary/survivalist standpoint.
But in a society I've found it brings up two downsides:
Guilt, because your intelligence allows you to avoid pain or achieve a higher level of comfort in society. You weren't "superman" you just made rational choices based upon your understanding of how the system works and now your friends and family are suffering because they didn't and you want to help them which requires more energy and effort or you can't which means your intelligence has limits and all you can do is watch them suffer.
Stress and anxiety. Once you figure out that you can problem solve and improve your quality of life it's natural, like any athlete, to grow and push your boundaries. But intellectual pursuits aren't as cut and dried as physical ones - It's easy to know that you can only bench press 200lbs and that's what you need to work on - Less so when you're trying to solve problems like familial and social discord but nobody will listen or trying to improve your company's fortunes by making proper investment choices. More to the point, I'm an engineer and there's nothing more frustrating trying to solve a problem you've encountered with your design that YOU pushed for, can't figure out why it's not working, might not work AT ALL and the boss is breathing down your neck (oh and the company is on the line). There's plenty of days I've driven by a building crew and daydreamed about just running the earth mover or driving a dump truck.
In an Agrarian society - in a pre-industrialized world these issues just didn't come about for intellectualism - Partially because it wasn't as much of a survival skill. (And that's probably why steampunk is so romanticized today)
"We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness."
This I think comes from identifying 'genius' as someone with special ability but not a popular, cool ability. Exceptional athletes, musicians, and actors are just as much outliers as 'geniuses', but their talents are never liabilities, and only rarely does society genuinely encourage any humility on their part.
"Why the fuck do you make the idiotic claims that you do?"
Useful idiots are useful idiots. Ever notice that those who denigrate European and US culture are almost always leftists? They are communism's "useful idiots".
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I can bang my head against a brick wall all I want, but all I will ever get out of it is a broken head.
The trick is to pick a battle you can win, and then buckle down and win it.
I've climbed high in my own life, but that is because my goals were achievable and I had the tools (both born with and the opportunities I needed) to succeed.
There are many who work hard in life but don't get much of anywhere.
That said, working hard is the only way to MAXIMIZE your opportunities and inborn potential. Praise your kids for their hard work, not their brains.
--PM
Unless it, say, causes a higher energy usage or makes you slightly more prone to parish from an infection. The selection pressure for most of our evoluationary history might just be a tad different than it is today. It works the other way, too, of course. Other threads note the increased risk of getting depressed from all the "bad news you can't fix". A high intelligence might make it harder to just shrud that off, while you could more easily filter it out with lower intelligence. (Just like kids can hear some conversations and really don't take note of the full depth of what's being said.) This phenomenon might be worse today than it used to be.
Exactly. Point a loaded gun at a playful dog and he'll be all excited by the new game.
Apropos of little - what I hate most is the happiness of the stupid.
That's not to say the study was totally useless, but the objection is fairly striking. Today. Oh well, indeed the decision to run the study was taken 80 years ago -and really it shows...
Herve S.
Reflect on that last sentence as pertains to yourself and your initial diatribe.
It is not respective to myself being a criminal, the family I married into works in blood money and this I have physical evidence of beyond being directly told of this, my family built aircraft in a program that was cancelled in 1964 and that was directly related to my grandfather being victim of a criminal act.
That's well overstating a weak case. If you merely want to state the weak case, you might argue that an average IQ of 100 within a society is almost by definition ideal.
As intelligence goes up, happiness often goes down. See, I made a graph! I make a lot of graphs...
Nah, should be theoretically possible - the heart will keep beating no problem, and removing it shouldn't kill the person until oxygen deprivation starts setting in - people survive heart transplants ll the time. Drug someone enough that the shock doesn't kill them, and they should be capable of surviving at least until the oxygen in their brain is used up.
Of course without the blood pumping they won't have long - as a reference point nitrogen (or other inert gas) asphyxiation can cause unconsciousness within a few breaths as the oxygen is pulled from the blood, I imagine a cessation of blood flow would be similarly rapid. With powerful enough stimulants though you might be able to keep them conscious a bit longer - nitrogen asphyxiation usually takes a minute of two to actually kill someone, though permanent brain damage starts much sooner. Probably not long enough to eat their own heart, but maybe long enough to take a bite or two. Though WHY they would do such a thing is an entirely different question.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
If you don't know, why post?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
There are many obvious advantages to high IQ, if the genes related to it weren't also linked to major negatives then the process of evolution would have selected for them more effectively than it has.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
So unemployed.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You're too lazy to look it up? Just because we can't define intelligence to 5 digits of precision doesn't mean it isn't a useful concept. We can still talk about a correlation between X and intelligence, as long as the correlation is strong enough that it will hold for any reasonable definition of intelligence.
Actually, self employed for the last 5 1/2 years. I am however am putting that down now to continue what my family started here over in Germany as it looks as if the US is just grasping at pretty much anything it can just to keep itself running. There is better observed capabilities with engineering over there anyway.
You lose consciousness in under 5 seconds of fresh blood getting to the brain. Better eat quickly.
We have too many people in college / higher levels of the ivory tower some maybe very smart but at times in some fields when it comes down to real world work experience (out side of the ivory tower) they can be very dumb.
If high intelligence were an unmitigated benefit, natural selection would have moved the IQ average to 130, 150 or whatever over the eons. There _must_ be commensurate down-sides. Depression? Slower reflexes? Go fetch!
As it is, we just have the Flynn effect of average IQs rising about 1 pt per decade over the past century. That might [or not] be considered as fast evolutionary change.
>... can result ... could allow ... likely discovered ... Very likely it was ... probably considered ...
1. With respect that history has been shaped and taught to the liking of corrupt king and cross.
2. With respect that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
3. Respect that gospel of the bible itself has been revised several times yet remains gospel, most probably for reason 2 based on human nature.
Intelligence is a weaker selection trait in the wild then, say, strength, stamina, endurance and mate attraction.
It only becomes worthwhile once you have a stable society and can then pursue such "luxuries" and, even then, it appears to take thousands of years to become critical to society in general and, even now, it's still not considered a "desirable" trait for mate attraction...
My brother Pete got a doctorate in math from UC Berkeley and has no social skills. He has never married and doesn't ever contact me or my sister. I used to call him and there was dead air if I didn't talk to him. He has lived in a tiny apartment for forty years. There are other things from his childhood that affected him.
Nope.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
You're too lazy to look it up?
Looks like you're too lazy to look it up too. We don't know, and can't agree upon, a proper definition of intelligence. And it makes a difference what exact definition is used in a study. The definition of "intelligence" used in this study is IQ, so your link is to the wrong article.
I suspect we won't be able to clearly define intelligence until we create a general AI...
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Only if you have a low tolerance for stupidity, which is rampant in the human species.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There was plenty of motivation of the conquering Spaniards to demonize the culture that they were destroying
Wherever You Go, There You Are
. . . used to say, "It ain't what people don't know, it's what they think they know!"
I've come in contact with at least one super genius that I know of, and it was a most humbling experience. I have solved technical problems which previous companies and persons have spent hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of dollars, to solve, to no avail. Perseverance prevails when intelligence is sometimes lacking . . .
I fail to see how an IQ in the top 10% of the population can be called mediocre...
The way the economy works people tend to sort themselves into groups. Top 10%, for example, would be 120; but most of those 10% have college degrees. Since the mentally handicapped don't go to college, and it actually takes some skill to get through, college grad IQ is gonna be above 100. Most sources I read show 110-115. And 120 is not that much more then 110. Moreover if you're actually in the 120 group you'll probably be associated with highly analytical people who score very well on tests. You're an engineer, or the guy they send to talk to engineers, you'll think your 120 isn't a big deal because everybody you know who has told you his IQ is in the 130s.
Look at it this way: let's say you're a 1 in a million basketball player. There are 310 million Americans, so you've got 310 American peers. Let's further say you're the 310th. You all play in the NBA. You're probably a marginal NBA player because non-Americans are allowed in, so you're competing against 309 Americans who are better then you and 90-100 foreigners who are literally in your league. Since there are 30 teams with 15 roster spots there are 450 spots, and you're likely second-string on a really bad team (backing up the guy who tries not to get embarrassed by Lebron) or third string to a guy like Lebron. Your basketball IQ score is literally unmeasurable (most IQ systems stop at 160 or 1 in 30k), but since you spend your life dealing with the other unmeasureables you probably think of yourself as mediocre to bad.
Maybe the researchers (or journalists reporting on the article) aren't intelligent enough to realize that correlation does not equal causation. Maybe people who aren't wasting all their time enjoying themselves are both less happy and more intelligent.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
No, I'm not an Italian sith lord in love with mind control fighting holy wars by proxy through other countries. In fact my family made it out of there long before that fiasco to become involved in US intelligence advanced aeronautical programs. Unfortunately the program was cancelled over what happened to my grandfather in '64 but the plane developed by the program went on to fly in the USAF for a very long time and in that time never had so much as a gun installed on it, not to say I am anti gun but funding for that aircraft was run through an entity that conceptually forbids it. The real loss in the program being cancelled was in what it would have achieved in development for our space program, that goal was escape velocity done with an air breathing jet engine sometime during the 80's.
The notion that North American native peoples lived in any kind of harmony with nature is simply false.
Wait, what? That's nonsense. Any kind clearly covers a lot of ground, and some North American native peoples clearly did live in some kind of harmony with nature. They didn't leave it untouched, but they did see themselves as stewards with a responsibility to maintain the land. Again, there's variation between peoples. On the plains they burned down forests to make room for bison. But in other places they set controlled burns which successfully maintained forests throughout thousands of years of continuous occupation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Says the US, with both feet in Hitler's toy box.
Well, we did import it at great expense, it would be a shame not to play in it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This study says "Each point increase in IQ test scores is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year...The median net worth for people with an IQ of 120 was almost $128,000 compared with $58,000 for those with an IQ of 100."
Yes, absolutely.
Society loves a genius, but only long after it is dead.
Personally, I find defining achievement as wealth and fame as problematic.
A cop might be a detective and be great at solving serious crimes -- both intellectually an achiever, and also benefiting his/her community; while still being not terribly highly paid or famous. Or what about someone who chooses a quiet life as a homemaker/parent, and raises smart, confident, self-reliant, happy kids? Just a couple of examples I can think of.
There's a definite western capitalistic/materialistic bias in the study's assumption. You can debate whether it's 'good' or 'bad', but it's still a bias.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
You have to have social skills that help you convince others you are more intelligent than them.
Maybe. But you need social skills to not make the 'average' people think you are shitting on them. There are a lot of not outstandingly brilliant but hardworking and productive people that you will meet. And you will be better off working with them, even if that means keeping a lid on your genius, than trying to convince them that you possess it (even if you do).
Have gnu, will travel.
I have a fairly high IQ plus a pile of education and so much bores me and I find myself toning my intellect down. For instance I am taller than average and find when I walk with a shorter person I will hunch to bring my head down to closer to their level. It seems to make conversation flow better but needless to say it hurts my neck. When surrounded by people who short in the intellectually curious department I just about lose my mind hunching down to their level. I go through life seeing where other people clearly don't have a clue about the world around them and are acting on their terrible understanding. Long ago I stopped even trying to help most people as I never could tell when they were actually appreciative or if they were just being gracious while thinking that I was being a know-it-all shit.
A perfect example was a guy who was filling in some holes in a wall in a room I was in with a water/powder based filler. He did a great job of making a beautiful corner but then proceeded to use a heat gun to "dry" the filler. Should I have told him that the chemistry of that product does not involve water being evaporated but the water actually becomes chemically incorporated into the final product? I didn't say anything but I felt bad because the guy is responsible for a large building and having his work later physically fail could cost him his job (maybe).
I also see people making wildly stupid financial decisions, wildly stupid life decisions, and of course make wildly stupid statements on science, engineering, or medicine. I just nod my head and don't offer any counter to the world being roughly 6,000 years old.
And before anyone completely label me some kind of intellectual snob, I have discovered many a hill-billy who kicks ass; the occasional gem who has taken the crappy opportunities life threw at them and led an intellectually stimulating life. They will have ripped the engine out of something, changed it from carbureted to fuel injected, run it on methane, and now have it crushing various food/bio waste into pellets that they burn all winter in a pellet stove of their own design. That person kicks ass and I want to be around them. They guy who hates his job, hasn't read a book in 10 years, would trade CERN in for sport stadium, and wants to talk about the "Game" is someone who I want to yell at and say "your mouth is producing noises that are making me dumber by the second."
If high intelligence were an unmitigated benefit, natural selection would have moved the IQ average to 130, 150 or whatever over the eons.
Yours seems to be below the average, whatever number that is.
The IQ is standardized such that the fiftieth percentile has an IQ of 100. It's a definition, nothing more.
Nothing is as sharp as obsidian. It's still used in some surgery.
No one thinks of themselves as stupid. The mentally ill people enumerated above could not discern their own stupidity due to hysterically dissociated ego deflective logic. I think I've made my point! Later ...
The purpose of existence is to make money.
>Nope.
So... Not human nature... Perhaps conspiracy?
I only venture there as I am in no way the first to raise this question and actions to preserve power structure by ruling party's would still fall within human nature though.
I would have to say the technological part was not so bad, but we played with Hitler's love of the occult in 1954 and that ended the separation of church and state, it has been a downhill run ever since here.
Next thing they'll tell us that not all the tall people are good at basketball.
Giant ground sloth was present before those "with nature" humans you talk about, and died out shortly after. In fact, there's a list of about 50 animals that would have been good hunting or human competitors that died out once they go to North America.
You ideas about what they did are quite trite, and 100% wrong.
1500 of the smartest people in the world, and their highest achievement was a sitcom?
>Alright then: looks like the arrival of Europeans didn't have any appreciable effect on the continent then
I wouldn't put the finger on Europeans per se, more of what was brought with them and that was a ruling party's culture, this could be narrowed down to being slavery.
No, because there is all kinds of intelligence that is not measurable by IQ tests. For example, a huge chunk of our brains is the visual cortex, but for some reason people don't consider it a sign of intelligence to be able to be able to distinguish basic objects like apples or elephants, or to recognize spoken words (especially with background chatter), or to hold a meaningful conversation. Yet anyone who's tried to have a computer do it knows what a PITA it is. Speaking of computers, just about every math skill is done better by computers, but almost no one considers a computer intelligent.
So at the very least you have 1) raw brain/computing power 2) specialized skills 3) knowledge/data/programming which is rather like precalculated solutions.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I can relate to that. People who live more in the moment are happier, because the long view always involves decline, death, and dying. I'm petting and really enjoying my dog, and somewhere I'm thinking how I might have another eight years before I have a 120 pound problem who is pissing and shitting huge logs everywhere, who is going to be a royal bitch to dig a hole for one day. I'm having sex with my wife, and somewhere I'm thinking how much it's going to suck looking at her when she's 80. The big picture long view always seems to have a down side, and it's depressing.
I can relate to the expectations thing too. Everybody looks up to you, and a lot of them are jealous of you, and it makes it that much harder to choose an ordinary life. I'm a truck driver, and I like my profession fine, but I constantly feel a need to apologize for not owning the trucking company or being a professor or something; for not aiming higher in general. I've found a lot of people don't like me, because they don't think they're good enough for me for some reason, and yet I feel the same toward them. I'd love to just be normal, and not have to think so much about everything. Too much knowledge can be crippling, instead of helpful. It's hard to invest in a business idea, knowing every conceivable way it might fail, and what all the odds are.
My mother was even more intelligent than I am, and she died young, of alcoholism. She was a miserable woman.
Intelligence is overrated. One side effect for me is that I can never enjoy the opiate of a nice handy sky daddy to make me feel less infinitesimal in the scheme of things. We evolved to see sky daddies in everything, and I have the same need in my brain as any other human, but there's nothing to plug into it. I haven't found the religion yet that wasn't just totally inconsistent and goofy.
The true burden lies in thinking a "high IQ" means you're better than other people. There are many valuable skills and talents which are not measured by an IQ test, including art, music, empathy, and so on.
The burden is the arrogance of presuming IQ means intelligence. It does not. It is simply one metric for measuring skillsets.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Maybe the reason why geniuses are so miserable is because they look around and find themselves surrounded by morons.
*parties
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
The danger when you have the intelligence to do anything you want to do in life is doing nothing. You hesitate to focus narrowly on one field of study because that means you'll have less time for all the others.
I won't say what my IQ is, but it's up there. My grades, especially in science courses, were practically perfect. People were expecting me to go into all kinds of careers, including medicine, chemistry, physics, computer science, etc.. But, I'm interested in everything! Always have been. I chose a career that didn't need much thought so I could keep up with what was happening in science and technology. It's worked. How many 62 year olds do you know who build their own computers? Or just bought two new microscopes? Or diagnose their own problems before going to the doctor?
I know a lot of successful people. Most of them have very little time for fishing, hunting, camping, going to ball games, watching television, listening to music, playing with the children & grandchildren, or working in the garden. I have all the time in the world to enjoy life. Isn't that what it's all about?
>*parties
That would depend greatly upon the beverages being served. Based on observation I'm leaning towards my spelling. ;-)
Here is what you are missing -- helping others.
Most of the activities of my life have been trivially easy for decades. Helping others remains challenging.
If you really are "so smart", you are able to see what a disaster this world is today. Well, get busy changing it. You will be up against the most powerful, greedy, selfish & moneyed people on the face of the Earth. Challenge enough for me. What about you?
I come here for the love
Alrighty then, who was it that invited Howard Stern?
You are headed for a fall.
I come here for the love
If high intelligence were an unmitigated benefit, natural selection would have moved the IQ average to 130, 150 or whatever over the eons. There _must_ be commensurate down-sides. Depression? Slower reflexes? Go fetch!
Um, hello? Homo sapiens moved from hunter-gatherer tribes to the threshold of being a space faring civilization in less than 25,000 years; that's the equivalent of a microsecond on evolutionary timescales. What the hell more do you want?
That has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with outlook and perspective. Lets just say, I'm a pretty smart guy and the best piece of advice that I was ever given was to focus on the now. It is easy to foresee problems and possible scenarios and it is good to take measures to prevent the obvious. However, the sooner you realize that shit happens that you will never be able to plan for or there are simply various inevitable outcomes that will be sad and painful that you simply will not want to deal with, the sooner you will realize that there is just no point in worrying about them.
It has almost become a catchphrase for me, "Cross that bridge when you get to it." Focus on what can be dealt with now. Try to keep yourself in the best possible situation that you can and don't worry about what is around the corner until it is within sight to actually deal with it. Friends will come and go, loved ones will leave you, cars and tools will fail you when you need them the most, at some point your job will end, and eventually you will die. These are simple truths of life but if you spend even a second worrying about any of them before there is anything you can do about them, it is purely wasted energy that could be put to use tackling the problems that you do have.
I'm not saying it is easy to change the way you look at the world. It can take some work if not serious effort and it is easy to let yourself fall into ruts of depression and self-loathing. I know, I was there. That is nothing but perverse mental masturbation that does nothing but waste your energy and destroy what little happiness you can achieve. If you can learn to refocus yourself to only what you can affect, the happier and more productive you will become.
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Maybe the reason why geniuses are so miserable is because they look around and find themselves surrounded by morons.
Maybe - it (might) be dependent on several things: definition of genius (high level abilities across a range of fields); reaction to competition.
Not being a genius I'd be guessing - and that'd be ironic given my experience with people who consider me "very intelligent" and then say "I don't understand why you don't waste your abilities" (i.e. why aren't I famous/richer/better fit their stereotype of what "smart" people do). My experience is that the smarter someone is - the less certain they are of their abilities (the more you know, the more you know you don't know). One perception is that society (the average) recognises and rewards those that are not as clever as they claim to be (or good). E.g. Not so smart. If you are so smart why don't you cure cancer/old age? Smarter. Because I can extrapolate. (none of those things would improve the world in which I live) Not so smart You are an idiot.
As someone mentioned earlier in this thread - expectation is an important component. One of the smartest people I know lives under a bush - his family had high expectations for him and got him scholarships in the "best" schools. Their expectations were that he would do much "better" than them (make more money, get more respect). He thought (correctly) that they were ignorant and relied too much on the opinion of those "who appointed themselves as peers". So he went the the "best" schools - on scholarships offered to raise the academic ratings in order to attract the offspring of the wealthy, and not surprisingly was victimized and did not get to join the exclusive boys clubs. I don't know whether the unrealistic expectations of his family or the first-hand insights into the lives and realities of those who society calls successful, caused him to reject societies expected standards. He's clean and healthy - and one of the happiest people I know.... so I have no reason to doubt he's still very, very smart.
Some things he's said:- the very smart are a threat to those that are not so smart - so if you're smart, play dumb; the only way to get smarter is to challenge people who are even smarter (so being surrounded by morons might have several effects); most people are too stupid to know how stupid they are; approval is a prison - pick your jailer carefully; most things are without reason or purpose and the dumbest thing is to search for reason where there is none; happiness is a choice; don't ask me - if you can't work it out the answer is valueless.
My point - if I have one, is that I'm not sure "smarter" people are unhappier because the smartest people I've ever met are not obviously smart (they hide their abilities). There is a myth that those that are much smarter than the average have an advantage - which is like believing that because you have 20 years experience at fighting you can beat someone twice your weight who has no experience. Numbers of people is like the weight of your opponent. It also overlooks the fact that in life we rarely get to chose the games we play - you may be much smarter than your colleagues, but they may have devoted their lives to licking arses - and if you are so much smarter than your boss unless he takes advantage of your superior abilities you are of no greater value than your dumber colleague. You are also more cautious about implementing changes - your dumb colleague is not. Perhaps being smarter means that you are unwilling to shit upstream because of the perceived consequences (you drink that water) - your dumber competition is not so constrained and achieves greater financial success.... Does your extra smart make you aware of this? Does your extra smart make you realise that there is no point in trying to educate your dumber competitor or their customers?
Tricky..
WTF you calling a Republican? I despise what the Republican party has become. Granted, I despise the Republicans less than I despise the Democrats - but that sure as hell doesn't make me a Republican.
Your second paragraph attempts to establish a person's intelligence, based on his political thoughts. No point in reading any further, unless I want to amuse myself.
Then, you have the audacity to offer advice in your last paragraph?
Grow up, boy. Or girl. The adults were talking, and you should just STFU and listen.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
>I do believe most of the post WWII UFO sitings, including the Roswell Crash were US Air Force personnel ...
I can speak with confidence that this is not true.
>Other than the Apollo program being developed from reverse engineering the V-2 Rocket with the help of Von Braun
This is true.
>I know of none of Hitler's toys in our possession.
Paperclip included more than just scientists, it also included technological documentation as well as Himler's documentation and Vatican style records of bloodlines and observed traits involving telekinesis, and the mind control bullcrap.
This was all in safe hands under OSS, but that all changed under the newly established CIA policy with political oversight of classified programs and the thieving ready made killers.
Maybe higher IQ means you are not just focused on looks, money, power etc. Those things will not bring you joy. You see how stupid the world is, and as smart as you are there is no way out.
You're too lazy to look it up?
Looks like you're too lazy to look it up too. We don't know, and can't agree upon, a proper definition of intelligence. And it makes a difference what exact definition is used in a study. The definition of "intelligence" used in this study is IQ, so your link is to the wrong article.
I suspect we won't be able to clearly define intelligence until we create a general AI...
KIDS! please.. adhominems do not allow such a good point to be explored in the discussion so dial it down a notch or two!
I agree that we would need an open ended general definition for what intelligence is otherwise the argument becomes so subjective as to be philosophy and not science. I sometimes wonder if the view such as yours, that we would need to develop a general AI to understand intelligence is semantically, a step that may lead attempts at defining intelligence in a "Nuts and Bolts" way astray. By your very definition, in order to understand the thing, we have to create the thing we don't understand, which sounds like creating an infinite improbability engine.. or something.. Better example, it sounds like painting ourselves in to a corner by the notion that in order to create a widget we would need that widget as a preliminary step to building it, which is as I said painting ourselves into a corner mentally.
There has already been some interesting work along the lines of defining intelligence in a general sense mathematically and a few models exist that attempt to mimic how networks of neurons process information, (back propagation networks with feedback, Dr Jeff Hawkins's Memory prediction model paradigm , as described in his book On Intelligence and my personal favorite: Alex Wissner-Gross's work demonstrating the defining equation: F = T S which states that intelligence is a force which uses it's available energy to maximize its future freedom of action.) None of these definitions are complete but they do give us some interesting and insightful clues as to what the general characteristic intelligent entities should possess are.
1- Intelligent systems should be able to be intelligent independent of outward observable behavior (We can be intelligent just lying around thinking and not outwardly "Doing" anything.)
2- Intelligent systems should gather information in the form of patterns and sequences of patterns, be able to recall them from memory and recognize patterns or partial patterns it has seen before and based on this collection of memory and experience, be able to "Predict" what pieces of information are coming next based on past patterns. Perceptions of these patterns and sequences should therefore be immune to variation in terms of being viewed in different settings, from different angles, and in the presence of noise and conflicting data, incomplete patterns and most importantly be viewed with an awareness of time.
3- Intelligent systems should be able to use the benefits endowed by the characteristics of 1 and 2 in order to use it's available energy, assets and surroundings in order to maximize its future freedom of action , whether that freedom be, winning a game and continuing to play, ensuring it's own survival or the survival of other beings or assets under it's care or achieving a pre-defined objective in the presence of uncertainty.
Again I say that the definition is not complete, because there are certainly aspects that can be added to this that would better describe humans, higher mammals, or advanced autonomous computer systems behavior in such a way as to lead to better understanding of what is going on inside our skulls or that would lead to (in the case of computer, robotic and software systems ) design parameters. To say that we have "No idea" of what intelligence is, at this point in the game.. in 2015 is not entirely true as a lot of serious work is being ap
>I do believe most of the post WWII UFO sitings, including the Roswell Crash were US Air Force personnel ...
I can speak with confidence that this is not true.
What was it that you are confident it was then? Aliens? A claim like that would require way more proof than you probably have to be taken anywhere near seriously.
as far as Nazi research into telekinesis and mind control? just because it was researched does not mean it was real. Hitler was intelligent but by no means sane, and in a regime like that doing real science is problematic at best.. when the leaders think they know what the outcome of the research "Should" be.
Keep in mind that, it was scientists in the Nazi party that claimed, because Einstein was a jew, that "Relativity is a jewish farce".
I am thankful that the Nazi's were that dense, as to, due to their own prejudices, hadicapping themselves away from realizing that E=MC^2 was the key piece of info they needed to develop atomic weapons. We are here, living in the free world because they allowed their hatred of the jews to over-ride their desire to understand how the universe actually was structured to a level of sophistication needed to split the atom. THANK GOD!
"I'd love to just be normal, and not have to think so much about everything."
You know, it might not help that you're a truck driver and probably have waaaaaay more time to think than the average Joe. :) And don't be too hard on yourself.
I think it's illegal to be reasonable on Slashdont, but after thinking about it, I agree with you. I know intelligent guys who have a totally different perspective. I don't know Arnold Schwarzenegger personally, but I've read "Total Recall," and he seems quite intelligent while also being the sort of "in the moment" person I was talking about. There was even an interesting passage where he talked about how he liked to make decisions without having too much information, because knowing too many details was crippling.
Now I'm starting to wonder if it could be an introvert/extrovert thing. I can't think of any intelligent introverts who aren't the same flavor of maudlin, introspective basket cases that I am. I can't think of any extroverts who aren't "in the moment" types, whether they're intelligent or not.
Hmmm.
Certainly -- renorming measures the Flynn Effect. If it helps your understanding, please read the quoted sentence as "... moved the IQ average intelligence level to what we currently consider 130, 150 ...". And since you apparently like pedantry, please learn the difference between ignorance and stupidity.
But I agree hunter-gatherer societies find other traits more advantageous. Even industrialized societies have lower intelligence advantages than information societies. "Mate attraction" is obviously a second-order effect with lags (it is what used to pay). We are 10 generations into the start of industrialization but only 4 into info.
The gross advantages of intelligence are quite apparent and quite large. That intelligence is only slowly taking over implies the net advantages (after deducting disadvantages) are much smaller.
Maybe the reason why geniuses are so miserable is because they look around and find themselves surrounded by morons.
High IQ people are not miserable, they are just not particularly happy. They are about average.
Whatever their's is, your's must be lower. Obviously they were comparing our 150 to the hypothetical 100 of a more intelligent society.
IQ is the median of a group. Obviously they're doing inter-group IQ comparisons, not intra. An IQ of 150 in one group can be the IQ of 100 in another group.
There is a possibility that there is an assassin in your house ready to kill you. There is a possibility that an asteroid will strike you. The probability of either of the situations being true is practically zero, but not impossible. You can waste your time wallowing in those situations which will either never happen or you have no control over or you can use your intellect to root out the real problems in your life and solve them.
This is not about giving up on truth, this is about tackling the real issues instead of "What ifs." Any time spent on thinking about losing loved ones is time that could have been spent with loved ones. Any time spent thinking how they will leave you is time taken away from focusing on why they might leave you and how to prevent that from happening. And any time you think about a loved one dying who isn't at this moment fighting for their lives is not about them, it is about you wallowing in self-loathing whether you admit it or not.
Priorities.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
I was there. In school, I was horribly depressed thinking about all the different ways my life could quickly turn south, in spite of every parent and teacher saying that I will practically be the next Bill Gates. I also couldn't help but dwell on the ephemerality of everything I loved to the point I was more-or-less a nihilist.
At some point, I realized it was just wasted energy that not only did nothing to help me but actively hurt me. It made me a serious, dour person that nobody wanted to be around. Worse, there is only so much time and energy to spend on thought that using it for what amounts to little more than self-loathing is just pissing away what could be used to focus on my real problems. After much hard work, and many ups and downs, I like to believe that I am a happier, more likable, and more successful person than I was 10-15 years ago.
It isn't about living for the moment, tomorrow be damned or making decisions with little information. It is about refocusing your introspection to where your real problems lie instead of dwelling on what you have no control over. Turn your gift of analyzing your situation and sussing out the truth into an asset for success instead of a depressing curse. Ask yourself, "Why am I unhappy" and attack those areas with ruthless abandon.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Yes there were life forms recovered, and they could not classify as USAF, German, American or human for that matter. Based on the knowledge I have shared with you regarding OSS/CIA you should be aware of a few things about me and my family and the aspect that one of my family members was present in Roswell in 1947. To provide evidence about that would be insane as the ability to cover up something by the government extends much farther than that of the mob which happens to be pretty extensive.
I think you might underestimate Hitler's desire to build a master race, and have overlooked his devout Catholic Austrian upbringing. One should never underestimate an adversary.
Einstein was a Jew, and quite gifted with the love of science over money, not very common in that people. The laws of physics do however change with our understanding, probably be better to establish theory because law is conceptually too strong of a word for something we have only scratched the surface of it is should be understood that causality is a factor on a particle level because different materials react in different ways in different gravitational environments as well as temperature. The definition of energy was a good call though.
I do find it amusing that you look down upon Hitler while you live in a nation that has applied his practice and thinking, but it would appear that hypocrisy is a pretty standard trait in humanity and contributes to my faith in it, more of the glass half empty type of faith. God is an entirely different subject, sooner or later everyone finds, based on my understanding of religion, my preference is free will.
Trust me it is. Have you tried arguing politics with a teabagger lately? They don't know history, the Constitution and its the Amendments, basic U.S. governmental function, basic economics, global politics, science, etc. They rant about their hatreds and fears but are unable to formulate a logical argument based on facts, instead blending in their religious beliefs and right wing sound bites as foundational arguments. It's all magical thinking and ignorance, and it makes being the intelligent one in the room a burden.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
I would have to say the technological part was not so bad, but we played with Hitler's love of the occult in 1954 and that ended the separation of church and state, it has been a downhill run ever since here.
OK so Godwin's Law holds true. I was going to send this link to a highly intelligent friend who constantly doubts his self worth but this whole tangle of threads proves that any mention of intelligence on Slashdot soon evaporates into a singularity of shallow thoughts about politics and religion.
I'm depressed not because I'm intelligent but because the world must face such vast infinities of stupid...
Here's a technique to add to your social tools: at the first hint of an inappropriate level of bullying, leave the group. There are plenty of people who don't respond to intellectual challenges with physical violence; choose your friends from among those.
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Northrop was developing "flying wing" aircraft in the 1930s, and the YB-35 flew on June 25, 1946. Germany also worked on similar aircraft in that period, but to imply that later US development of "flying wing" planes stemmed from Nazi research is contrary to fact. Yes, the control of such craft is more difficult, but no, it does not really need high speed computers - control systems just don't need to be fast and complicated just because it's a flying wing.
Some modern high speed aircraft use computer control because the aerodynamic configuration that gives the highest performance is inherently badly unstable.
Over the years, there has been debate about the morality of using the results of vicious Nazi human experiments, mostly in the realm of psychology, I guess that's another of Hitler's toys.
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Nazis and communists have a common desire to control the general population in a roughly similar fashion. They are so far removed from a free society that their differences are inconsequential.
The US Democrats are and always have been closer to communism that the Republicans. It is not by chance that Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Democrats.
The repeated attempts to overturn Obamacare have the same status as repeatedly trying to stop a serial rapist, except that stopping Obamacare is far more important. Complaining about not giving up after one failure, is profoundly immoral.
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the term is "fool's paradise", never "genius' paradise"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Maybe the reason why geniuses are so miserable is because they look around and find themselves surrounded by morons.
in the country of the blind, the one eyed man better keep his damn mouth shut if he knows what's good for him.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Nothing is as sharp as obsidian. It's still used in some surgery.
well, broken glass of all kinds, obsidian included. been a while, but we used to use broken glass for microtome knives to produce thin slices for electron microscopy.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
"Why the fuck do you make the idiotic claims that you do?"
Useful idiots are useful idiots. Ever notice that those who denigrate European and US culture are almost always leftists? They are communism's "useful idiots".
ever notice that those who have nothing but anecdotal evidence are so certain of themselves? Presumably, a presidential candidate who castigates nearly half the American population as freeloaders because they don't pay income tax because their income is too low (as distinct from those who pay no income tax because they have loophole-scenting lawyers) doesn't count as "denigrating US culture". No, he admires it totally, except for the parts of it he doesn't like.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Intelligence is a weaker selection trait in the wild then, say, strength, stamina, endurance and mate attraction.
It only becomes worthwhile once you have a stable society and can then pursue such "luxuries" and, even then, it appears to take thousands of years to become critical to society in general and, even now, it's still not considered a "desirable" trait for mate attraction...
Similarly; the next most intelligent creatures on earth, chimpanzees, even the other great apes, even the rest of the primates, are nothing more than a footnote in the book of earth's fauna, nor have they ever been terribly significant; and if humanity should vanish there is no possibility that their dominant place in the global ecology will be even partially assumed by apes, despite what the movies say.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
We have too many people in college / higher levels of the ivory tower some maybe very smart but at times in some fields when it comes down to real world work experience (out side of the ivory tower) they can be very dumb.
thats such a cliche, though. one could say that sometimes smart people can have tons of real world work experience, but when it comes down to analytical, theoretical understanding, they can be very dumb.
of course, that can be said of any two types of knowledge, besides ivory tower/real world. science/arts, for instance.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
How typical. People like you ramble on about things like "tolerance", but you are completely intolerant of any point of view that doesn't agree with your own. You are so very intolerant, that you ASSume that any opposing view must be a Republican point of view. "If you're not with us, then you're against us", right?
Poor idiot.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Aren't there standardised tests for IQ? So if all the different groups take the same test with the same scoring system, doesn't that mean that an IQ of 100 in one group is also an IQ of 100 in another group?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
My IQ is somewhere above 130, according to standardized tests. I am fully aware that IQ only measures very specific types of intelligence, and that I am probably both above and below average on other types of intelligence. For instance I absolutely suck at general small-talk. I love talking about things inside my sphere of interest, but the general "so, what's up?" kind of small talk completely flummoxes me.
I would say that being more informed of issues in the world, and being intelligent enough to know that there are better ways, definitely contributes to negatively to overall happiness. I mean, how can anyone be truly happy when there is war, hunger, injustice and exploitation in the world? How can anyone be content with the current situation when people are being mutilated and murdered by religious fanatics because they believe in different fairytales?
It's not that I never feel good emotions. I am moved to tears by particularly beautiful musical numbers, or sometimes movie scenes or books. I feel joy when I share good experiences with my friends and family. I am excited when I drive go-carts or ride my motorcycle. I am not a "*beep-boop* FEELINGS ARE ILLOGICAL" robot, I just don't think I have ever have felt true happiness, because I wonder and worry far too much.
Ignorance is bliss.
Eat the rich.
"I do not despise those who can't comprehend the things that I can, no matter how they try. I mean, why should I?" I agree with this statement. What I find difficult to stomach is people who refuse to question things with the intelligence they were born with.
Source?
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
Amen!
--
Irony included
It is not enough to be a genius in this world, you must also have marketing skills. It is very rare for someone to 'find' you out of the blue and determine that you have skills that they need and can make use of. You have to sell your intelligence like any other product. You have to be able to actually solve problems show people how that is beneficial to them. I imagine the ones that can't market and don't reach their full potential from an intellectual perspective are very unhappy indeed.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Generally evolution isn't going to go on a per-decade rate, especially for humans that live for 50-100 years. That's something that happens over generations. It's hard to measure in the long-term because the standards of measure have also changed.
There's also the upbringing factor: development is not only genetics, it's tied to health and nutrition. Your average "poor" person might not have a great outlook in that regard due to malnutrition etc.
A lot of the fine article can be boiled down to "If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?"
I know a lot of musicians (classically trained flute players) who are happy to spend hours a day at practice even though they day job has little to do with music. To simply say that their life is wasted because they are not a super star is dopey.
I knew programmers at the large corporation I worked at who made good money but were as dumb as a stump. I suspect that they hated their jobs. Yes, these people were successful and had decent jobs -- unless you only define success as being a multi-millionaire.
Being smart gets you further than grit alone, in the same way that a kind word and a loaded gun gets you further than a kind word alone -- at least is some areas. ;-)
Existential angst, frustration, and loneliness? How interesting...