Is any one alignment intellectually superior?

[Percivellian]

Is anyone else giggling about the appeal to majority in a thread about intellectual superiority?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, I don't know about intellectual superiority, but I think Lawful types tend to think things through a bit more, while Chaotics are impulsive.

But I will say that for truly superior intellect you need to be, ummm *checks name tag while moving lips* Lawful Neutral.

The Auld Grump, according to one of those online tests I am a Lawful Good Elf Bard... what's wrong with this?

 

[Celebrim]

Is anyone else giggling about the appeal to majority in a thread about intellectual superiority?

No. I'm a Democratic Populist. I believe that the majority tends to be intellectually superior, or at least I don't believe that the aristocracy shows any better judgement on the whole that the masses do. Distributed problem solving provides far better answers than centralized intelligence. Education is not always of any particular help, and a great ammount of education can be a hinderance to wisdom if only because it tends to make one forget what Socrates said: that true wisdom consists of knowing that you are not wise.

In fact, I tend to have a snicker at the ivory tower academics and self-styled philosopher kings, because I'm nearly as smart as they come and I have seen the heights. And you know, from the heights the average person doesn't look so bad. If anything, intelligence is a special brand of stupidity and foolishness which can be focused to be merely narrowly useful in a small subset of the problems presented by the universe.

I wouldn't say this except that I abhor snobbishness, but I say this as a man who once took an IQ test and had the tester come back to me with his jaw hanging loosely and tell me that no one had ever scored that high in the history of the testing institution. In high school, afterwards, teachers would stare through the doors at me during class to just find out who I was. I say that not to brag, but only to provide evidence that I'm qualified to have an opinion on this.

I don't think I'm that smart. I've been given just enough smarts to recognize true intelligence when I see it, and I tell truth - it isn't anything like you think it is. It more like what Einstein said: True intelligence is nothing more than persisting in solving a problem longer than anyone else.

 

[Storyteller01]

I'd say that it's possible but unlikely. Then, of course, we come across another redeeming quality of true neutral. It's the most forgiving of 'mistakes'.





Ah. Questions suited for someone truely intellectually superior. Not that I'm attempting to ANSWER them, mind you. But these are the types of questions you have to ask of yourself and the world to be True Neutral instead of simply neutral/neutral.

Here I point out again (and acknowledge) that pure neutral is (under my definition) the alignment most common to idiots and geniuses.

And my friends label me as Chaotic Good...

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Awwww. Celebrim, you went there? Tsk tsk tsk. No matter how honest you have been--it still looks really poorly thought out when you pander that way. Awwwww. I really like reading your posts. Quick. You still have time to edit!

Edit: So he's a bit of an elitist...so what

 

[Celebrim]

So he's a bit of an elitist...so what

That's not a discussion I can carry on here. Let's just say I've got a bone in this fight and a chip on my shoulder. Sorry Percivellian, you didn't necessarily deserve that, but you just unwittingly stepped on a button.

Anyway. Feel free to mock me. That doesn't hurt. I'm more than willing to risk it if I can get just one reader to not go there with that elitist crap in the future.

The last few years on the internet has gotten me to be rather reflexive on the memetic beatdown. I'll try to be slower with the outrageous slings and arrows in the future so as to not contribute to the problem.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Mocking...no. Poking fun at to ease the burden of a heavy chip...yes. I mean, we are typing...at least I am...its not like your blurting things out in a board room. I really didn't mean to mock you...well...perhaps a little...but in a fun way.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Sorry, I'll do a quick analysis of the numbers by tomorrow, promise. I'm just real busy now. I have rounded to the nearest whole number with no decimal place, fractions annoy me.

****

Of 1,871 viewers 329 voted, or 18%.

****

Of 329 voters, 40 voted for a single dominant alignment, that's 12%.
Of these, Good and Lawful made up 29 out of 40 or almost 75% preference. They were almost identically split. Chaotic and Evil combined did not get 10%, and Neutral got the remaining 16%.

****

Of 329 voters, 150 voted for specific alignments, that's 46%.
True Neutral and Neutral Good both share 23% of this subtotal, Lawful Neutral follows with 16%, and Lawful Evil closely trails on 14%. Lawful Good leads the below 10% stragglers with Chaotic Evil limping in on 0% if we use the declared rounding method.

****

Of 329 voters, 132 voters voted for None, that is 40%, and 7 voted Other, which is 0%.

****

Conclusion:

A vast majority saw the question and poll and did not give it the time of day, this raises serious concerns about the validity of the question. The largest single most vote selected was None, suggesting that no alignment has intellectual superiority. Specific alignments were thereafter chosen as the best selection, with Neutral and Neutral Good tied, then Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil virtually tied. Finally a small minority chose possessing a singular alignment as intellectually superior, of which the Lawful and the Good as being equally important.
I believe that this question as presented is not completely valid to most people. To those that see some validity within it they generally accept each alignment as being intellectually up to task. The 'opinionated' voter that accepts the questions validity but rejects all alignments intellectual robustness, generally picks a Neutral-to-Lawful selection and a Neutral-to-Good selection.
Finally there are a handful of elite people out there that recognize the true intellectual superiority of Lawful Good - warms the heart.

Thanks all for taking part!