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The Curse of Smart People (2014)

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Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#151

Post by walljm »

WalterBright wrote: post #141
walljm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see this belief in probably about 80% of people I encounter, and it has little correlation with how smart one is. The virtue he is discussing is humility vs pride, and I think you're right that it isn't really correlated with intelligence. People all over the IQ spectrum will exhibit both. Pride may be a common stumbling block to those who don't often experience failure though (i.e in the smarter crowd), because…

It's more than that. People who take personal responsibility for failures in their life empower themselves to fix it, find a way around it, do better next time, etc. People who consider themselves as victims believe there's nothing they can do to improve their lot, and so do not.

Good point. I hadn't considered the importance, not just in recognizing your part of the problem (humility), but accepting that it is you who can and should fix the problem (confidence, determination).

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#152

Post by jstewartmobile »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #105
jstewartmobile wrote: post #31

My experience has been that most "smart" people are actually high-functioning autistic savants. I mean, if they were actually +2 std deviations above on the whole enchilada, their lives wouldn't be such a mess. You can make a lot of money and still be a hot mess. Look at celebrities. Alpha nerds are just a variation on the theme.

I think that might be colored by the "culture" of tech workers where you happen to be, that has certainly not been my experience. The smart folks I've met in tech, including the outright geniuses, have been almost universally well-rounded with a strong set of "soft skills" and typically a widely varied set of interests outside of their work specialty. Indeed, I'd describe them as "fully fleshed out human beings", per…

Wasn't talking specifically about tech workers. I was talking about academically gifted "smart" people I've known in various walks of life who are, generally speaking, not happy.

If their lives aren't a mess, they're not the ones I'm talking about.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#153

Post by [deleted] »

jstewartmobile wrote: post #152
InclinedPlane wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that might be colored by the "culture" of tech workers where you happen to be, that has certainly not been my experience. The smart folks I've met in tech, including the outright geniuses, have been almost universally well-rounded with a strong set of "soft skills" and typically a widely varied set of interests outside of their work specialty. Indeed, I'd describe them as "fully fleshed out human beings", per…

Wasn't talking specifically about tech workers. I was talking about academically gifted "smart" people I've known in various walks of life who are, generally speaking, not happy. If their lives aren't a mess, they're not the ones I'm talking about.

[deleted]

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#154

Post by Nomentatus »

yakult wrote: post #7

My pet theory: much of 'gut feelings' and intuition boils down to having our internal black box predict the behavior of other people. When you are 'average', this often simplifies to reasoning about what you would do in the same circumstances, which is relatively easy. If you are 3 standard deviations out, you'll have to compensate that consciously, which is inaccurate and difficult and slow. This is like how UI desi…

There's also a problem when SmartPerson runs NormalPersonVM(6.0) because that runs at three times NormalPerson speed. SmartPerson knows what NormalPerson is going to say a half hour ahead of time and gets bored easily, plus NormalPerson catches on that they are being anticipated consistently and that's bloody annoying or scary for them. Running NormalPersonVM at the right speed for the right person is tough. Raising children gives lots of practice with this, though. We're talking "mirror neurons", btw.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#155

Post by mrkgnao »

pmoriarty wrote: post #81
Inconel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I can't even fathom this level of intellect. Edit: If anyone is interested in the topic of Hungarian scientists in the twentieth century, I can highly recommend the book The Voice of the Martians [1]. It can be a bit dry at times but it is incredibly interesting nonetheless. American scientists jokingly referred to their Hungarian colleagues as Martians due to their other worldly intelligence and their accen…

While we're on a von Neumann love fest, here are some other great quotes: The Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe speculated: "I have sometimes wondered whether a brain like von Neumann's does not indicate a species superior to that of man". Eugene Wigner wrote that, seeing von Neumann's mind at work, "one had the impression of a perfect instrument whose gears were machined to mesh accurately to a thousandth of an inch." Paul…

And Dantzig himself was known for having mistaken a couple of unsolved problems for homework :)

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#156

Post by jondubois »

lacampbell wrote: post #128
cryptica wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an inversion of cause an effect. Successful people are emotionally invested in the idea that there is a strong correlation between personal behaviours and outcomes - On the other hand, unsuccessful people are more likely to believe that there is little correlation between the two; that it's mostly random and that skill only plays a tiny role. Successful people will often try to argue that unsuccessful people…

Humans are hard-wired to gamble and accept terrible odds. People know that it's almost impossible to win the lottery and yet so many of them keep buying tickets every week. I think you severely overestimate the average persons understanding of how gambling works.

Actually I worked in a gambling company as a software engineer before so I understand pretty well how they think.

Almost all gamblers know that the odds are not in their favour and yet they keep playing because they think they're special.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#157

Post by pas »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #110
_y4o5 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And about 4 billion people live in the slums with no access to basic human needs much less education. Oh, how many einsteins and others are there among those people. Heck the cure for cancer could be among those people but we (collectively as a human race) choose to sideline them and throw away their potential. I think this is a huge loss to the whole human race.

This is a good point but I think you're missing about half of the equation. There is tremendous unique potential (geniuses, savants, etc.) being wasted right now due to poverty or socio-cultural repressiveness. Those one in a thousand or one in a million individuals who are stuck somewhere and unable to live up to even a fraction of their potential. Einsteins, chandras, or feynmans who will live their lives doing men…

I don't know. Working at McDonalds hardly qualifies one for understanding current scientific hypotheses, debating and testing them. Sure, there are lots of jobs in science other than theoretical, but it might be very tough, unrewarding and thus frustrating to spend a life chasing things without ever fully grasping their complexities.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#158

Post by redant »

wolfgke wrote: post #48
_m8fo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps if everyone started from the same point this would be true. However, not only has everyone not started from the same point, there are forces -- those who already have money -- who are spending money in an effort to brainwash those who do not into doing things that benefit them indirectly.

> Perhaps if everyone started from the same point this would be true. However, not only has everyone not started from the same point By deciding to have children or not (and if yes: how many?), parents vote about the distribution of the startup positions for the next generation. EDIT: In other words: Poor people should rather be angry about their parents than about the system.

Could you provide an algorithm for deciding how many children to have? Then could you apply it to an average American family in 1950? I bet that any algorithm would tell them 'Are you crazy to even consider having kids? You just witnessed a global war that took tens of millions of lives. The world economy is still anemic. And the world is on the cusp of the nuclear war.' And every algorithm will be proven wrong by the baby-boomers generation. I think your argument is a suggestion to over-rationalize in the absence of information. Exactly what the article is describing.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#159

Post by redant »

The author and some comments tend to confuse skills, success, and intelligence. I think the author describes successful and skillful software engineers who are far from being highly intelligent. It just happened that their skills of constructing program is highly valuable in the current market conditions. Which feeds their arrogance and leads to all kinds of ugly consequences. The hardware engineers of the 20-th century had the same issues. The main hero of the movie Falling Down is an excellent example of such guy.

Re: The Curse of Smart People (2014)

#160

Post by wickawic »

Trundle wrote: post #145
mhurron wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is why should those kids that can behave themselves (which used to not just be 'rich kids') be penalized by being stuck in an environment that has to slow down because half the class didn't hear the teacher the first four times because they choose not to pay attention. In high school, I just stopped showing up. Classes were going too slow for me and didn't hold my attention. I'm not super intell…

If they were advocating for the removal of the programs then it was an implication I missed. I think the posters only concern was that the classes contribute to the common misinterpretation of what smart is. Maybe it would be better to just advertise them for what they are (according to that poster) and call them the "conscientious track"? That way kids who want in have something obvious and actionable to work toward…

That's exactly what I was getting at. Special treatment and exclusivity breeds feelings of superiority and inferiority where none need exist. Starting this at a young age tells kids that they haven't been "chosen," and kids are too young for us to blame them for not trying to take college classes etc. when they have been structurally told that those classes aren't for them.
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