Because Donald J. Trump is President of the USA.
Why aren't smart people happier?
381–390 of 651 posts
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#382There's a lot of good takes here about the link between happiness and intelligence.
I think it's also worth saying that both happiness ans intelligence are very loose concepts, and few people should be convinced we can measure them well.
So I guess my rhetorical question is, if smart people were happier, would we even know?
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#383Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…
I'd take a different answer to this question: philosophy. In times before Abrahamic religion developing or adopting a life philosophy was seen as a practical obligation for a man. This is where you saw the rise of everything from the Pythagorean to the Stoics. It seems that the rise of Abrahamic religions is what largely brought an end to this and mandated a sort of one-size-fits-all philosophy for everybody. Now in…
The miniscule amount of written work that survives to the present really makes it difficult to do any more than speculate about the philosophies broadly held in the times before Abrahamic religion.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#384Why aren’t less intelligent people also happier? I dunno mate, could be the shape of society right now…
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#385Happy smart people are generally very focused and only care about a few things. Unhappy smart people are constantly getting "nerd-sniped" into focusing their intelligence on things that don't make them happy.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#386I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people seem unhappier. Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a…
You are confusing medium intelligence with high intelligence I fear.
Truly intelligent people won't be getting into doom spirals and self-sabotage. They will - obviously - use their superior intelligence to avoid that situation (or mitigate it before it becomes an issue), but the merely middling folks get trapped by it and cannot work their way out of it because they're just not intelligent enough to realise it is happening and/or work out how to stop it.
Good luck.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#387“ Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in…
You can remove intelligence from that hypothesis entirely, and it won't change the meaning. You can substitute almost anything else, too: "Owning a rubber duck without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis." Well, yeah, but why is the duck in that sentence?
It's in there because of the claim directly preceding it: "But all too often a search for a rubber duck drives out the search for love". It builds upon that first statement.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's interesting to me is how all of it is true. You were and are in an elite tier, the measure is purely how we care to slice it. Reminds me of the aphorism "whether you think you can or can't, you're right." I find this saying really insightful and true. Others may find it flippant and void of any meaning. The sports analogy of what you shared is: "there are levels to this". At any given level-child, minor, high-…
This gets to the heart of why visualization works. When you’re conscious mind visualizes outcomes, around say work or sport performance or really anything, your subconscious mind can’t differentiate it from reality; the better you are at visualizing the harder it is for your subconscious mind to tell this. It is why visualization is such a powerful performance technique. Negative self talk is really bad for you.
This is more or less the basis of a lot of western esotericism and ceremonial magick. Consider it a weaponization of the placebo effect, or the closest thing to creatio ex nihilo one can personally experience. Dialogue with the purveyor of negative self-talk is another modality in this space.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd take a different answer to this question: philosophy. In times before Abrahamic religion developing or adopting a life philosophy was seen as a practical obligation for a man. This is where you saw the rise of everything from the Pythagorean to the Stoics. It seems that the rise of Abrahamic religions is what largely brought an end to this and mandated a sort of one-size-fits-all philosophy for everybody. Now in…
I think happiness is an inevitable byproduct of honestly following your innate sense of self. Intelligent people can be dishonest with themselves, not know themselves and be (more) capable of lying to themselves and coming up with justifications to do what they mentally want (rather than following their innate sense), thereby trapping themselves in endless dishonest but justified loops.
This tracks with what I've seen. Greater "capability" can imbue a greater ability to lie, cheat, deceive oneself, or others, and generally create all sorts of complicated problems, be them internal or external
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#390I read a lot more sci-fi / fantasy compared to other people. Sometimes 5-10 books a week in high school when others wouldn't touch a book unless they had to (and this was before the internet was generally accessible!). Maybe that's a lot less than others here. I have read about a lot of (fictional) societies that make many decisions, some good, some bad, but usually somewhat well-reasoned. And then you realize that t…
> the average person voting/making a decision is either "ok, that's what the tv says" or "god told me so" or "I am mad at XYZ" or "I don't actually care" with no long-term thought or planning. Unfortunately, this is true. Lots of people make decisions just by gut feel.
We cannot "test-drive" politics. We are testing in prod without rollback or backup.