The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Thomas Shey]

Confidence in one's own brightness is generally fine, imo. It's genuinely empowering. The problem really begins, imo, when that self-assuredness in one's own smarts comes at the expense of qualities like humaneness, empathy, and respect for community. I think that's what got our civilization so drenched in privileged techbros.

It also doesn't hurt to learn that your intelligence and aptitude in some areas doesn't automatically port over to other areas. There are a few well known examples of people who were genuinely bright, even brilliant in some areas who showed amazing stupidity outside of it.

General intelligence is, as a poster up-page said, a very useful tool but it can also lead you with a great degree of overconfidence about your ability to engage with every thing you come across, when it can require at least some additional talents to do so properly. The vagaries of my professional life taught me that the hard way.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, there's lots of studies around how paragraph breaks and proper use of capitalization make content easier to parse and remember.

As my good friend and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds viewing companion, SNARFZODIACKILLER, always reminds me- the only thing better than the proper use of capitalization is the constant use of all-capitalization.

 

[payn]

I don't think I have disagreed with someone, so much, so frequently, in a single day. An hour even.

 

[Ryujin]

It also doesn't hurt to learn that your intelligence and aptitude in some areas doesn't automatically port over to other areas. There are a few well known examples of people who were genuinely bright, even brilliant in some areas who showed amazing stupidity outside of it.

General intelligence is, as a poster up-page said, a very useful tool but it can also lead you with a great degree of overconfidence about your ability to engage with every thing you come across, when it can require at least some additional talents to do so properly. The vagaries of my professional life taught me that the hard way.

Co-Worker, two salary grades above me. By all appearances a top level guy in networking and network security. Thought you could flush the left over vegetables from his lunch down the urinal.

Senior design engineer at a computer manufacturer where I used to work. Would design optimal board layouts in his head, before committing them to CAD/drawing. Guess who did things like format disks for him and copy data. It's not that he was above it. He really didn't know how.

 

[ichabod]

If we've gotten to admitting to being trolls while arguing about alignment, I'm out.

 

[prabe]

If we've gotten to admitting to being trolls while arguing about alignment, I'm out.

 

[nevin]

I could certainly believe that. I don' t have children, so the how-to's of raising them is a bit outside my wheelhouse, tbh.

I was thinking more about the adulthood behaviors. But, yeah, it's pretty obvious that many " smart" people are raised less conscientiously than others, never understanding that there's someone in this world who is smarter than you at something is important, or that the view of someone less "smart" can be equal - or even superior - to your own.

You know, it's actually kind of neat that humility - as difficult as it can be in practice - is itself so empowering.

well ime the smarter someone is the more they are lacking other areas. Im definitely a bit lacking in the empathic range. experience has taught me to look for things I didn't when I was younger and I generally do better now but when I was younger I didn't even look. I just missed how things were making people feel. Smart people also tend to forget that there are different kinds of intelligence, and that some normal real world things like work ethic can do more for them than their smarts. I wouldn't go so far as to call everyone equal because that's an abyss of arguments. But everyone has strengths and I've seen people with far less intelligence go much further because they leverage their strengths perfectly. I've got a son who has more common sense than the entire family put together. It's really annoying to lay out an very well thought out Idea to him sometimes. In 2 seconds he finds the flaw I never saw, and he started doing it at age 2. I gave him the whole santa spiel and he looked up at me and then " Dad santa flies around the world. Yep son. He's coming down the Chimney and leaving our toys. yep son. ( i was so proud of myself). I'm sleeping with you tonight dad. (my brain exploded.. never thought of santa as creepy but really he is when you put him in a common sense viewpoint.) Now that he's grown even though he isn't nearly as smart as his brothers he learns from those around him when they mess up. The effort he saves in not doing counter productive things far more than makes up for the extra effort he has to put into figuring things out sometimes.

I think raising kids to see that everyone has equal value even in their differences is the key.

 

[Ryujin]

If we've gotten to admitting to being trolls while arguing about alignment, I'm out.

Indeed. Stealth trolls only; all Rogues and Monks.

 

[nevin]

If we've gotten to admitting to being trolls while arguing about alignment, I'm out.

well aren't trolls the indigenous people of the internet? I do enjoy squatting on thier virtual land......

 

[CleverNickName]

But Monks are not Trolls, nor should they be.