Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why aren't smart people happier?

experimentalhistory.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 515 posts

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#231

Post by naasking »

badpun wrote: post #118
wiseowise wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yet increases the latter How?

For one thing, after your children have grown up and moved out, most people are really glad they've gone through parenting, have an adult child they are in relation with, potentially grandchildren to enrich their lives with etc.

To claim that having kids makes you happier in the long-term requires comparing against the control group of childless adults. Last I checked, there was no appreciable difference in happiness between these groups in middle age.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#232

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

naasking wrote: post #228
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #225

I don't understand why people are making correlations between intelligence and happiness. Seems kind of arbitrary. Why aren't smart people taller?

Presumably because happiness somewhat follows from material circumstances, and smarter people are more effective at obtaining better material circumstances. There is no such association with tallness.

Yeah, i mean it's a false premise, in my opinion.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#233

Post by ta988 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #161
p1esk wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, I thought smart people are those who are good at solving poorly defined problems.

Have you read the OP? It's less about making an argument for the "correct" definition of "smart"; and more about saying that the way psychologists measure "intelligence" (eg when trying to study things like "are smarter people more or less happy") is measuring success at solving well-defined problems. That things like IQ tests as well as academic success are about solving well-defined problems. You can think "smart p…

I don't think academic success only involves well-defined problems even if your work doesn't involve research and just teaching. Being able to convey properly ideas, concepts and information to students is not a well defined problem...

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#234

Post by ycombinete »

karaterobot wrote: post #154
lostmsu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wish-washing the answer where none is needed. I bet you smarter people are better at answering all of the questions you listed. Cursory search on IQ vs marital status confirms that.

Ahh, the power of a cursory search to prove just about anything. What about the arguments given in the article?

A step away from the ol’ hacker news “trivial”

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#235

Post by yibg »

naasking wrote: post #226
yibg wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is there is no real evidence provide to back the assertion. Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems? "One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives" seems like a circular definition. So people that feel good do so because they are better at solving poorly defi…

> Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems? It seems plausible. For instance, would a good accountant (well defined problems) necessarily make a good physicist (poorly defined problems)?

Well at least I didn't see any evidence that says a good accountant would make a worse physicist than a bad accountant. So the assertion that people that are good at solving well-defined problems are not as good at (or at least has no correlation with) solving poorly-defined problems is not well supported.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#236

Post by dgb23 »

yibg wrote: post #197
jrochkind1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was expecting the OP to say that smarter people were less likely to be happy, because that is the sense a lot of us who believe ourselves to be "smart" have. But that's not what OP is about, and it suggests that's not really what the research says either, there's maybe a bit of hint of a small negative correlation like that, but mostly it says: no correlation. Rather than making the argument you are making, which I…

Problem is there is no real evidence provide to back the assertion. Is the ability to solve well-defined problems really different from the ability to solve poorly-defined problems? "One way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives" seems like a circular definition. So people that feel good do so because they are better at solving poorly defi…

I'm positive it is a different skill and I even think that those two skills can be at odds at times.

Poorly defined problems often come down to things like creativity and your ability to handle emotions. Sometimes you have to follow a seemingly senseless curiosity to find the right path forward. Sometimes it is about finding beauty where it isn't expected. Also these problems have multiple valid and fundamentally different solutions and can be highly subjective. Think art.

Well defined problems are about juggling multiple things in your head, high concentration, relying on fundamental knowledge, heuristics etc. All of that possibly under pressure. There might be multiple solutions but they are typically on a scale (good enough vs perfect etc.) or are choices between measurable tradeoffs. Think engineering.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#237

Post by ARandomerDude »

pixl97 wrote: post #70
klik99 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question - how old are you? Anecdotally I’ve noticed smart people tend to have this attitude until their late 20s when it starts mellowing out. Now I’m a bit older I see my smarter friends happier than anyone and the less smart just about the same as always

Could it be that 'smart' people have accomplishment or material gain later in life they are satisfied with?

Unsolicited advice from some random guy on the internet:

Don't start down that road. Material success will always be just over the next hill, regardless of how much you already have. Happiness and satisfaction can't come from accomplishment or material gain.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#238

Post by BeetleB »

nickd2001 wrote: post #157
dusted wrote: post #34

I'm not especially smart, or happy, but, personally, I don't know how to be it, or what it feels like. I know pleasure, but being in a constant pleasurable state is not what is meant by happiness as far as I know. Slavoj Žižek (someone who does seem to be especially smart): “Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dre…

I can guarantee, that trying to make someone else happy, will never ever fail to make you happy :). Even in the unlikely event you fail to make that person happy, the effort of trying is fulfilling. Now the problem is, most of us , myself included, forget to direct our efforts to making others happy. I imagine God up there like an exasperated parent : "If only you guys would actually listen to what I suggested, you k…

> I can guarantee, that trying to make someone else happy, will never ever fail to make you happy :

I can guarantee that there exist several data points that refute this.

Definitely can guarantee many cases where doing this to excess for some people is a net negative.

Can certainly show cases which led to divorce (i.e. always trying to make spouse happy was unstable, and the marriage would have been much better off with randomly ignoring spouse).

Helping others can make you happy. Just don't do it at the expense of self care.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#239

Post by ta988 »

One aspect I realized over time is that smart people tend to try to have knowledge and explanations for much more of the world than most of the others. And many times these explanations are completely wrong and partisan when it is out of their main areas of expertise but they cling to it really hard. Over time this tends to dissipate in many which also make them much nicer to be around.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#240

Post by impalallama »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #225

I don't understand why people are making correlations between intelligence and happiness. Seems kind of arbitrary. Why aren't smart people taller?

the question tends to break really fast if you try to define almost anything in it.

Intelligence is already notoriously difficulty to quantify, now compare that to something as ephemeral as happiness.

what are you going to do? compare someone IQ against some self reported metric of happiness?

Post reply on HN