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Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

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Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#251

Post by s73ver_ »

monochromatic wrote: post #191
Daishiman wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are BS accomplishments and their twisting of logic is beyond ludicrous.

> The fact that some people dislike the things he's getting done doesn't take anything away from that. What’s BS about them?

You don't get to claim judicial appointments as one of your accomplishments when the only reason they are there is because another member of your party, who happened to be the Senate Majority Leader, basically said "You Shall Not Pass!" to all the previous President's nominees.

As for "government waste", arguably he's wasting far, far, far more with his golf trips than any that he "saved". And many of those "savings" came at the expense of social programs that, without, will likely end up costing us more.

The travel ban is a giant example of his racism that I guess you could put on his accomplishments, if only to show how brazenly racist he would be in office. Even then, it's initial rollout was a complete and utter disaster, and it was prevented by injunction several times.

Trump has NOT defeated ISIS. Not even close.

Throwing gasoline on an already fiery situation in the Middle East is NOT an accomplishment.

Dooming the US to irrelevance by being the one first world nation to not participate in the Paris Climate Accords, thus ceding our position as leader of the world, is also NOT an accomplishment.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#252

Post by s73ver_ »

goatlover wrote: post #250
ambrosite wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better to say, if a leader can relate to the people, then he may be more likely to take their interests seriously.

But is that true? Or do the campaign managers know that helps get their candidates elected?

I believe that's the difference between genuinely being able to relate, and faking it.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#253

Post by amateurpolymath »

roenxi wrote: post #55
guelo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the economy would run better (i.e. free market) without their "help". As if boom and bust business cycles aren't a thing in free markets. Or monopolies. Or monetary policy. Or externalized costs. Or tragedy of the commons. That's just run of the mill anti-intellectualism.

If putting economists in charge somehow curtails monopolies, externalised costs, tragedies of the commons and boom and bust business cycles then someone really should sit down and get that news out there. Nothing I've heard suggests economists outperform a healthy democratic process. Monetary policy is one that is more up for debate - it seems reasonable that it can have a positive effect on gdp, but something has de…

In the US, our democratic process has delegated all these roles to regulatory agencies that are staffed with economists. The FTC, FCC, Justice Dept., etc. all employ many PhD economists. Whether their bosses and the politicians listen to their recommendations is another matter.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#254

Post by [deleted] »

cryoshon wrote: post #246
DoreenMichele wrote: post #225

If you are struggling with such issues, you might find some of the resources at Hoagies Gifted Page helpful. I don't read it myself anymore, in part because it is the smart version of poor little rich boy. In other words, it whines a lot about "Oh woe is me. I am so smart and it is ruining my life." But if you are having social challenges as a smart person, that isn't necessarily a bad thing to be exposed to. You can…

i never got the self pity vibe from hoagies' page. i felt it was more explanatory than comiserational. it's a great resource, though.

[deleted]

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#255

Post by nubbins »

tormeh wrote: post #99
mlevental wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a crock. it was a crock when it was written and it's still a crock now. the idea that someone can for 8 years in the spotlight disguise themselves so much so that appear wholly opposite is ludicrous. it takes months for professional actors to produce 90 minutes of performance - the guy was on camera for literally weeks. he's not "smarter than you" this kind of revisionist nonsense is politically motivated - p…

Do you think you could become president of the US if you just wanted to? Probably not. Trump is smart. I would be in literal, not figurative, disbelief if any president in the history of modern US weren't. The competition for that position is very sharp and only the best make it. There are many problems with Trump, but IQ isn't one of them. Hitler wasn't dumb either. Being a good demagogue is hard. The strategy and s…

I'm sure at one time he was of at least above average IQ, after all the average person accomplishes very little, wealthy parents or not. But I wouldn't call him (now at least) smart either as to me that implies some kind of skill or at least attempt at abstract reasoning. He does have a talent for tapping into this great unconscious id that I think makes him like an actor or artist in some ways.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#256

Post by Consultant32452 »

telchar wrote: post #196
mywittyname wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think charisma is best used to signal a lack of intelligence. Someone else posted a link to a op-ed about GWB, but Trump follows a similar approach. Lots of people question his intelligence and decision-making ability, yet, every one of us hear or talk about him several times a day. He also has a political sleight-of-hand that I don't think has ever been matched. Every time a key policy decision is being debated, t…

To use a metaphor as a counterargument, if there were a 6 foot spider in my shower you'd better believe I would talk about it at least a few times a day. That doesn't mean the spider has charisma, just that it's a clear and present danger weighing heavily on my mind. If anyone is exercising political sleight of hand I'd say it's the legislators and executive staff who are getting in all their unpopular actions while…

Trump's skillset is that of a reality TV star. He knows what to say and how to say it to engage people in drama. His presidency has been a continuation of this. It freaks out the intelligentsia because it seems insane to them that a person in such a high place of power could get involved in things like Twitter flame wars. That's low class/blue collar behavior that is totally foreign to their own culture. That is why people on the blue collar end of the spectrum are more capable of realizing that this particular aspect of his behavior does not represent a genuine threat, because it's part of their culture.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#257

Post by roenxi »

afpx wrote: post #237
roenxi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If putting economists in charge somehow curtails monopolies, externalised costs, tragedies of the commons and boom and bust business cycles then someone really should sit down and get that news out there. Nothing I've heard suggests economists outperform a healthy democratic process. Monetary policy is one that is more up for debate - it seems reasonable that it can have a positive effect on gdp, but something has de…

Could you explain more what your second paragraph means? I think I’m missing some background information. But, I’m really interested in what you have to say. As for your last paragraph, which things in the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index don’t you buy? I just just read though the list of items in the PCE, and it seems like stuff we all buy. https://www.bea.gov/about/pdf/1106_ACM_PCE.pdf Also, I’m not cl…

First I’ll address inflation measures as they apply to me, then I’ll just air some fringe views that hopefully you will enjoy reading. EDIT And thirdly I'll extensively change what was written because I'm pretty sure it misrepresented the monetarist theory of inflation.

I’m happy to be corrected on this, but ‘inflation’ in the US is usually the CPI-U series; less Food and Energy when the Federal Reserve sets monetary policy; not the PCE with which I am unfamiliar. I got weights from [1], which suggest 25% weighting to a theoretical owners rent component which in reality I don’t pay because I don’t have a mortgage. Obviously the index can't apply to everyone, happens not to apply to me. I would love to see a comparison of CPI weights vs average expenditure, which might make me feel a lot better, but I don't know where to find that info.

As for elaborating on the monetary policy part, I broadly subscribe to the idea that a 10% increase in the amount money should link to a comparable reduction in the value of a unit of currency. That is basically using a personal inflation rate that is the rate of increase in the M2.

The core inflation rate is The big downside of this is all the usual stats become questionable – particularly ‘real GDP growth’, which I mentally downgrade by 2%. A lot of monetarist inflation types end up looking to measures like energy/capita, which is theoretically a measure of real wealth that can be used without relying on understanding inflation calculations. I like that measure for my own reasons.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/home.htm

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#258

Post by mulmen »

killjoywashere wrote: post #87

Personal anecdote, but I wonder if my experience as a junior officer in the Navy helped with this. The last comments in the piece are that intelligent leaders should 1) seek creative metaphors and 2) speak charismatically. Coming to the fleet from a bachelor's in physics, I knew I was reasonably intelligent, but also that there were some people much smarter than me (at least my battered ego assured me of that). So, w…

I don't have military experience and I will stop short of saying I wish I did because I think that does a disservice to both of us. What I will say is that the vets I have worked with have been excellent contributors and leaders. I work in a place that values strong leadership and makes a point of hiring veterans. It would be easy to dismiss that as public relations fluff but I truly believe vets make an invaluable contribution to a company.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#259

Post by psergeant »

exolymph wrote: post #95
danharaj wrote: post #41

In my experience really smart people can be arbitrarily wrong, perhaps moreso than less smart people, because they can create elaborate mental models to justify bad ideas, and someone significantly smarter than me can create difficult to refute arguments that serve as a bulwark against pushback. Remember that sophistry requires sophistication but is still little more than the smart person's stupidity.

Metacontrarianism! I'm always delighted when I get a chance to link to this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/2pv/intellectual_hipsters_and_metaco...

Oooh, I like that a lot. Many people whose political views I find offensive are people who would identify themselves as intelligent, while generally their views on things seem pretty facile.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#260

Post by WalterBright »

Nomentatus wrote: post #234
WalterBright wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed in 1914 was going from gold backed money to fiat money controlled by a central bank. > and has to renounce conversion This problem only happens in a fiat money system. It notably happened in 1930 in the US.

There was a world-wide change in 1914 that blew apart the previous rigid system of currency exchange. The U.S. followed suit, but under any scheme at all the exchange rates of its currency would have been more unstable because the previous stability between all currencies was gone, whatever the U.S. chose. Nixon renounced conversion to go to a fiat system. That's what renouncing conversion means, to abandon conversio…

The world wide change in 1914 was going from the gold standard to a fiat money system.

> exchange rates of currency

That was not the topic, the topic was instability in the money supply.

> Nixon

The US official exchange rate was a fiction from 1930-Nixon, because it was illegal to hold gold as a monetary instrument. Nixon simply did away with the fiction.

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