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Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
61–70 of 453 posts
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#62> Why aren't smart people happier? I think any discussion on this topic should begin with answering "Why would one expect smart people to be happier?"
It’s even worse, the opposite is actually true (but it’s a slight effect).
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#63I will speak from my experience. When I was younger, I considered myself very smart, and I was pretty unhappy. As I grew, I met people much smarter than me; I stopped seeing myself as "the smart" one, and now I am pretty happy.
It's not that I became happier because I became less smart; I became happier when I stopped thinking my value was based on my intelligence, so I stopped trying to be recognized by my intellect and started working on my mental health and building healthy relationships.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#64All these studies suggest loneliness makes you unhappy, however I feel happiest most when lonely and doing my thing and not with people. With people I just feel frustrated or weird, because I think so different than the others.
Possibly you are conflating being alone to loneliness?
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#65Because we see how things fail, and why. And it's usually intentional incompetence and/or greed.
Both are fixable, but both require the person or system wants to fix it. So, it's usually not fixed.
Things like death "fixes" things. So does leaving the position in simpler ways. Technology can force the issue and force removing incompetence, or equalizing greed.
But yeah, it's seeing "intentional incompetence and/or greed" causes stagnation or worse is very disheartening and sorrowful. We could do so much better.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#66Im not smart (maybe average), but a lot of my unhappiness starts from just having access to information. And then more I process the information, the more unhappy I become. Smarter people than me probably have more information and are able to process it faster, uncovering effects that are not readily perceived by normal folks like myself.
I stopped viewing all news media companies five years ago. Real news will get to you pretty quickly by other means such as HN which I still frequent a couple of hours a week. Modern news is re-hashing even the trivial in the worst possible way and inviting the extreme idiots on both sides to fight it out in the comment section, I can honestly say I am missing nothing and still find myself informed and happier.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#67Happiness is subjective, so that is the first obvious problem. Thee are probably a lot of smart people are are not as successful as they feel entitled to despite qualifications, and maybe this leads to feeling of inadequacy or resentment.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#68Im not smart (maybe average), but a lot of my unhappiness starts from just having access to information. And then more I process the information, the more unhappy I become. Smarter people than me probably have more information and are able to process it faster, uncovering effects that are not readily perceived by normal folks like myself.
I stopped viewing all news media companies five years ago. Real news will get to you pretty quickly by other means such as HN which I still frequent a couple of hours a week. Modern news is re-hashing even the trivial in the worst possible way and inviting the extreme idiots on both sides to fight it out in the comment section, I can honestly say I am missing nothing and still find myself informed and happier.
It is hard to abstain from news completely. The mainstream media is becoming increasingly like social media, feeding on shared sentiment and vague feelings of outrage.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#69Ugh. This analysis starts off a little interesting with its observation that "intelligence", as analyzed historically, tends to be about solving bounded-context problems (with a known right answer) rather than open-ended problems (D&D called this "wisdom", right?) But it is lacking so, so, so much in explaining why smart people aren't happier or evaluating the premises of the question. If my teenager gave me this ana…
It's a blog post. Unless you're reading Gwern or something, you shouldn't expect a really deep comprehensive take on an issue this ill-defined. I mean what does happiness mean? Its hard enough to get people to agree on that.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)
#70All these studies suggest loneliness makes you unhappy, however I feel happiest most when lonely and doing my thing and not with people. With people I just feel frustrated or weird, because I think so different than the others.
Scientists Have a Fascinating Hypothesis About Why Smart People Should Spend Less Time With Friends
https://www.rathbiotaclan.com/scientists-have-a-fascinating-...
I don't believe the evidence that this is based on, but if it is true I have a theory that sometimes applies to me. Your sweet, dumb friends have so many dumb problems that are fairly easy to solve that you run yourself ragged trying to solve all of them, and your success attracts more requests. Friends can start to seem like unpaid work unless you're playing dumb.