161–170 of 182 posts
I've noticed the pseudo-smart are quite annoyed by questions. RTFM, they reply. That's pseudo-smart for "I don't know".
Now, please, go away and only come back when you've at least done the homework.
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Niche experts often seem smarter. I've known a number of PhD students who are fascinating in their narrow chosen field, but weren't much good once you took the big fish out of the little pond. None of those folks were passionate generalists, though.
People seem smart when they know something you don't know and want to know. They appear dumb when they don't know something you consider easy. If you use those definitions instead of some hypothetical absolute standard of intelligence, things seem to be a lot clearer, and you no longer have trouble understanding how "someone so smart could be that dumb" or things like that. Every person who is X years old has had the…
Also, if I have a 'trouble understanding how someone so smart could be that dumb', it doesn't say much about that person. It says that I do have a problem with my understanding.
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> "The smarter you get the less amazing that will feel" This is something that I'm continually trying to come to terms with. The intelligence distribution is tighter on the high end than most people realize. By that I mean, the smartest people aren't really amazingly smart. This reply, from Clay Christensen (Business School Prof at Harvard, Rhodes Scholar...must be bright!) when asked how it felt to be the top of his…
I once had this really fascinating discussion with my father. He said, his IQ while not ridiculously high was in the ~1 in 30,000 range which suggests in theory something like 10,000 people in America are 'smarter' than that and more importantly around 200 his age. But, many of them don't even end up at such schools and 200 people can't fill the fill the 'top' schools anyway. Thus, these schools can't be anywhere nea…
What the article doesn't mention is that the smartest of people perpetually ask themselves questions regarding what they believe they understand. It is remarkably easy to convince yourself you understand something - a mathematical proof, the Halting Problem, advantages of some programming framework/style/language, when you're really just going through the motions and remembering what others have said, kind of memoriz…
Confucius was as a good asker of questions too, but even better is he knew when to not ask questions. Maybe that's the supreme sagesse. For instance questions about afterlife our special beings are better avoided, as are questions about programming language choice in a Ruby or Python shop.
Truly smart people have always come across to me as not needing to prove how smart they are Smart people don't care to convert me to their way of seeing the world. Be it using Ruby, Apple, or not, they are able to see a bigger, wider picture where everything is possible with the right amount of understanding and well placed effort. Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of th…
> Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide. Smart people know that their brain recognizes patterns where there aren't any. They know that they should not fool themselves. > Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses. Then they are the opposite of what t…
I didn't say I agreed with the article, haha. ;)
Constantly questioning your beliefs can lead to constantly doubting everything. Over time there is risk of only believing in doubts.
Developing a healthy curiosity that tests, clarifies and strengthens your current understanding is that.
If there's one thing I would have added to the post above, it would be that Smart people know that developing a correct mindset for the journey of learning is far more important than the destination of feeling that they have "arrived" with their level of understanding.
Too many people, think they're done once they arrive at their conclusions, or hang onto them so dearly and fanatically based on all the work they've done. Smart people, for me, are ready to piss everything they've believed into the wind every day because of possibility.
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It's not what your education/degree makes of you, but what you make of your education/degree. This false belief turns out so many people who feel cheated later in life. Perpetual self learning is the only required skill for the truly educated, or self-educating. IT especially, what we learn today is worthless in a short time.
Really? And here I was just reading a paper from the '60s. Being less snarky: It matters very much _what_ you learn. If you spend time being buzzword compliant (and to some extent, you have to), yes, that'll expire soon-ish. If you learn the underlying principles, it'll stay with you for a long time. (I'd say probably your entire career unless you're living on the cutting edge of research)
Similarly, how can someone learn to ask questions without being sufficiently curious, or at least sufficiently motivated to learn about a particular subject? I guess the answer is: with a lot of work.
Going to Harvard means I have the very unique opportunity to be around a lot of smart people. Good for you. Even better for you is the fact that you recognize your opportunity. How sad that so many people in your situation never do until it's too late. Now, when I say “smart people,” I don’t mean that guy who always wins trivia night. I mean, blazingly intelligent individuals who are regarded as the pre-eminent schol…
"please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart." I love that you said this. One of the things that smart people do is learn something from anyone they can about anything they can. I met a bellhop once in Florida. He had moved his entire family to Orlando. I think he came from some less desirable place up north. But he had enough smarts to realize that if he was going to cart bags…
Don't get caught writing "very unique" at Harvard. Being unique is binary. :) I don't like words like "smart" - and "stupid" - but I can recognize some of the qualities associated with them. One of the biggest is to know what you don't know, to not be complacent and arrogant. The people I respect the most are humble people, and I think it comes down to this. I don't know what the definition of "smart" is, but I think…
> Being unique is binary What is the probability of being unique?
A coin being heads-up is a binary property, yet it could be associated with a probability.
My high school English teacher mocked Harvard students who used term "very unique". "uniqueness" is a binary (not continuous/leveled) attribute (and "very" is a near-meaningless word).