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Why aren't smart people happier?

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#311

Post by nickelcitymario »

elmer007 wrote: post #142
nickelcitymario wrote: post #108

I actually would not expect smart people to be happier. In fact, I wouldn't expect any group of people to be particularly happier than anyone else. Happiness and suffering are two sides of the same coin and we evolved these feelings (or they were bestowed upon us by God, either way) in order to guide us. We do more of what feels good, less of what feels bad. If we're happy all the time, happiness loses its intended p…

> I wouldn't expect any group of people to be particularly happier than anyone else Interestingly, there is at least 1 group (to my knowledge) that is particularly happier than most everyone else. When surveyed, nearly 99% indicate that they are happy with their lives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3740159/

That is indeed fascinating. Not sure what to take from that at the moment, but it does seem like a finding with potentially big implications.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#312

Post by danjoredd »

sangnoir wrote: post #273
Apreche wrote: post #40

The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy. But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congra…

Smart people are very often terrible people. Being smart exists ok a different axis to being wonderful/awful, well-adjusted, fulfilled or even being successful.

I agree. Intelligence and wisdom are two very different things. Many intelligent people I know are unwise, and act terrible to those they disagree with. It is best to have a healthy dose of intelligence with the wisdom to be able to handle it.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#313

Post by fithisux »

Apreche wrote: post #40

The smarter people see the truth of the world and the universe. If the truth was good, that we lived in a wonderful society with wonderful people in a universe that cares about us, smart people would be so happy. But being smart just means you know the awful reality of things. Congrats, you learned about all these awful things you can’t do much to fix, and the reward is you get to experience existential dread. Congra…

Best answer. Should have been on Stackoverflow!

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#314

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

latexr wrote: post #73
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

Ding! At a certain point constant existential dread becomes tiring. You spend years mulling on it and the answer continues to be there’s nothing you can do, so what’s the point in worrying? Might as well go do something else and enjoy yourself.

In Buddhism, they advise against spending time pondering "unanswerable questions." [1]

If you know a question is unanswerable, and mulling it over makes you unhappy, then it's foolish to continue thinking about it. You can just leave it be and move on with your life. I think most people eventually figure this out on their own some time in their late 20s.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unanswered_questions#Sabba...

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#315

Post by knorker »

Why is your assumption that they would be?

I think the author is skipping a step in their logic.

Happiness doesn't come from succeeding in your goals. This seems childishly naive, like "if only I got that promotion then I'd be happy". "If only I had a better car then I'd be happy". No… you wouldn't.

The author's thesis that (tl;dr) "IQ tests only measure ability to pass IQ tests" completely disregards just about all research on the topic of intelligence and success, and the actual correlation between success in poorly defined problems and IQ tests.

It's not that "IQ test scoring" defines an intelligence scale. It's that it's strongly correlated with success.

So whatever intelligence is, IQ tests are strongly correlated with it.

But success, or intelligence, is not happiness.

A person with Down's syndrome can be very happy, but there is no "therefore is more intelligent than the Mensa member successfully running a multinational conglomerate" or the next Einstein, even if they are happier.

So this article is not "A new way to think about brainpower", but an old and tired disproved one.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#317

Post by pauldenton »

googlryas wrote: post #248
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…

There's even less evidence for the idea that smart people see how bad reality really is... Even dumb people know there are "kids starving in Africa", and people beat their wife and kids in their home town.

Yes, but dumb people think those problems can be easily solved, and smart people think about the second and third order effects. A dumb person will think sending free food will solve the problem, and a smart person will realize that will negatively effect food production as local farmers cannot compete with free

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#318

Post by adamc »

Still digesting this, but part of what makes some of the smartest people smart is the ability to find an interesting, well-defined, problem in a vague question. Great mathematicians don't just solve such problems, they help formulate them.

All of which is an aside -- I doubt it has bearing on finding happiness. It's more a critique of the way the paper wants to frame the problem.

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